How to define a defining moment

When I as 4 my family moved to a new small town. My dad would have a new better paying job and would be able to be home more often. I'd make new friends and all would be right with the world. What other concerns does a 4 year old have?
Then I started kindergarten. How could it be that everyone already knew each other? Anyone I tried to make friends with already had a friend to play with at recess. I should "go ask someone else" This would become my elementary school life. Most recesses were spent playing alone on the slide.
Even the teachers seemed to have preconceived ideas about who I was and what I was be like. My older brothers were trouble makers and so I must be a trouble maker too. Who wants to help a trouble maker.
Obviously it didn't take me long to become a shy, reclusive girl who thought the whole world was full of bullies and people who either didn't care about me or openly disliked me.

One day while waiting for the bus after school I went to use the restroom. I discovered someone had vandalized the restroom (as much as elementary school kids 25 years ago knew how to vandalize) . There mirrors were covered in silvery slipper soap and roll upon roll of toilet paper was strewn all around the room, like giant white of white snow on the floor. I was dumbfounded that someone would dare to make such a mess of the school bathroom. Didn't they know how much trouble they were going to get in? I quickly used the bathroom and started down the hall, heading back outside to wait for the bus.
I hadn't gotten far when I was stopped by a student who told me that Mr. Taylor wanted to see me. I stopped in my tracks, terrified. I was being sent to the Principle's office? The biggest baddest and most of all scariest adult in all of kiddom. What could I have done to incur the wrath of Mr. "T".
I set records for the slowest walk down the longest hallway all the while dreading what would happen when I stepped through the office door. I shuffled my feet. I stopped to count tiles on the floor. The closer I got to the office the more my shoes seemed to be made of lead. Eventually I was standing in the doorway feeling like a man on death row waiting to be seated in the electric chair. "What happens in the Principle's office? Will I be expelled?" My mom would be so mad at me if I get kicked out of school. "Is he going to yell at me?" To my intimidated young mind being yelled at by an adult would worse than death. Could death actually be a punishment for school children. Surely what ever I had done could not have been equal to that.
The secretary rushed me into his office and closed the door. Suddenly carpet became very interesting. Green and black loop, nasty olive drab green, just like they would have in jail, if jail had carpet.
At some point I realize he's talking to me, "someone made a mess of the bathroom". Yes I know this. I saw it. Why would he bring me here to tell me that the bathroom is dirty? I'm not the custodian. "Lisa said you did it." WHAT? "I didn't do it" I protested. Why would she say that? Was she trying to get me in trouble? I began to protest my innocence. Yes I'd seen the mess, it was there when I went in. Why did they think I'd done it? I didn't do it... Suddenly he stops me. "I believe you". "but I didn't,..." wait, he believes me? An adult believes me. No one had ever believed me before. I came from a family of trouble makers after all.
Not only did he believe me but he liked me. He knew that Lisa was just trying to get me into trouble and he knew that I didn't have many friends. From now on if someone was teasing or mean to me I could tell him. I finally had a friend.